Habs eben im WO gelesen :-(( aus auch für Hartcourt, Phan weg, Insider steigen aus, Sinobull weg. FUUUUUUUCK !!!!!!!
Thursday December 13, 6:02 am Eastern Time
HK online broker 2Cube folds, sells out to E*Trade
(UPDATE: Recasts with 2cube statement, adds details)
By Dominic Lau
HONG KONG, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Hong Kong online broker 2cube Securities said on Thursday it was folding its operations and was selling its 4,600 active customer accounts to U.S. rival E*Trade Group Inc (NYSE:ET - news) for undisclosed terms.
ADVERTISEMENT
2cube, a 50-50 joint venture between dominant Hong Kong telco Pacific Century CyberWorks Ltd and U.S. banking group JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM - news), said it would lay off its 29-member Hong Kong staff when it ceased operations on January 14.
``Current market conditions are such that it is not possible to provide a reasonable return to shareholders, thus closure of 2cube was necessary,`` PCCW and JP Morgan said in a joint statement.
The Hang Seng Index (^HSI - news) has fallen 23.6 percent year to date, making it one of the world`s worst-performing major market stock indices.
Total stock market turnover through November has thinned by some 37 percent to HK$1.828 trillion (US$234.36 billion) from HK$2.887 trillion (US$370.13 billion) in the first 11 months of 2000, according to stock exchange operator Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing .
Online trading also has been slow to take off in Hong Kong, with only 10 percent of respondents in an October survey saying they had ever traded online.
Other online securities ventures also have pulled back on their expansion plans in Asia.
HSBC-MERRILL JV SLOWS
HSBC Holdings (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: HSBA.L) has ``slowed down`` its global online private banking joint venture with Merrill Lynch (NYSE:MER - news), said David Eldon, chairman of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp Ltd.
``As you know, it`s slowed down. The market`s changed quite considerably from the time we first started this joint venture,`` Eldon told reporters on Thursday in Hong Kong.
HSBC and Merrill would wait ``until the time is right`` to decide whether to expand the venture`s services outside of the U.K., Canada and Australia, he said.
Meanwhile, he said wealthy customers were welcome to use HSBC`s own broking and private banking services in Hong Kong.
In Japan last week, Charles Schwab Corp (NYSE:SCH - news) and Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Co Ltd said they were folding their online brokerage venture because of the weak market and tough competition.
E*Trade opened its first stand-alone Hong Kong operation in April, but did not disclose how many accounts it had before the 2cube transaction. It is buying a total of about 8,000 accounts, of which 4,600 have had a trade in the past six months.
``Through acquiring 2cube`s customer accounts, we strengthen our foothold in the Hong Kong retail market by adding a highly engaged and savvy group of retail investors to our customer base,`` said John Lord, E*Trade`s vice-president of Asia Pacific
E*TRADE.
The customers would have the option to join E*Trade or close their accounts, but Lord said he anticipated ``100 percent success in persuading them to stay with E*Trade``.
E*Trade has more than 3.8 million customers worldwide with assets under management of over US$44.3 billion.
biz.yahoo.com/rf/011213/hkg49019_2.html
Das ist das aus für sinobull.com!!!!
und für hartcourt!!!!
